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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1954-03-25, Page 2WrWWPTTTTT CANDLE MAKING AKI pG aRLL A FJK BUSINESS Whets kerosene and then eleo- trie light came into everyday etre, everyone thought the time had come to echo Maobettes cry Of "Out, out, brief candle," But eleotrieity has not yet snuffed the candelight from our homes. New and practical uses for handles heap candlemakers busy as ever at their age-old craft, Today there are chlorophyll can- dles to draw away odors; stubby nightlights to keep coffee flasks And casseroles warm at the table; TV candles. set deep in opaque Mass jars, to provide the mini - hum light recommended by doc- tors for watching television; in- sect -repellent candles to keep rtiosquitoes at bay; and even can- dles flavored with peppermint, which have food value as well as burning qualities. le Such modern ingenuity, how- eer, cannot "hold a candle" to the strange customs of the past. Candles were used by the wit- ches; in 1490 a witch was charg- ed in London with having burned * candle to make a man waste away as the wax melted. They were also useful in exorcising witches. On Hallowe'en, when the witches held revel on the Lancashire moors, country folk wandered about the fells after dark carrying lighted candles. The witches would try to blow the candles out, but if the bearer managed to keep them alight until the clocks struck midnight, they were safe from supernatural mischief. The devout Italians of Campo di Giove believed that a few drops of wax from holy candles lighted in church at Easter, if let fall on their hats, would safe- guard them frons, being struck by lightning. Another old custom was "melt- ing by the candle"; a pin was stuck into the side of a lighted Candle and bidding proceeded briskly, the sale being awarded to the last to bid as the flame burned down and released the pin. Candles still shine in memory of St. Lucia in a Swedish festival en December 13. Teen-age girls dressed in white, with a crown of burning candles set in a green wreath on their hair, serve the members of their respective fami- lies morning coffee in bed, The fat red candles which shine from so many of our windows en Christmas Eve have more re- ligious significance than those Survivals of pagan festivals, the Christmas tree and mistletoe tough. Candles have featured Christian symbolism since 'rte p s in The Sun- ..M.: teiy Eluir<_+ Sterns, perehet on o tree, dig,. playtog her e et, l epos d. skin ewimsuif. very early days, especially in the rites of the Roman Catholic church, with its great Paschal candle lighted on altars at Eas- ter, blessed candles carried in procession at the Feast of Candle- mas, bell, book and candle used in the rites of excommunication, and the myriad votive lights burned daily before shrines. The earliest candles were made from the pith of rushes dipped in bacon fat, and until the end of the leth century candles were usually of tallow, beeswax, or vegetable waxes such as bay- berry. Then spermaceti wax, from the blubber of the sperm whale, became popular. The measure of light called "candle- power" was based on the light - produced by a spermaceti candle one-sixth of a pound in weight, made to burn 120 grains per hour, A hundred years ago came the greatest advance in the history of candlemaking, with the intro- duction of paraffin wax, a petro- leum product. The wax is ob- tained during the processing of lubricating oil when a special sol- vent removes it from the oil. It is then further purified and put to many uses such as in making wax paper; wax meta and candles, Imperial operated a candle fac- tory at Sarnia refinery until 1948 when the equipment was sold. The old tallow candles had an oily smell; they flickered, gutter- ed and dripped, and their wicks had frequently to be trimmed. Paraffin wax gives more light per unit without odor, but has a low melting point and makes a. soft, transncent candle. Stearin acid --a product of. tallow from which the smoky, smelly glycer- in has been refined—is added for hardness and opacity, Hand - dipping still produces the best quality candles hut dipping ma- chines are used for mass produc- tion. In both cases numerous thin layers are built up around the wick by separate dips in molten wax. Candles in unusual shapes are made in molds into which wax is poured and allowed to harden in due course. Whatever the manufacturing method, the wax and the wicks remain the production essentials of eandlemaking. Most -candle factories have a mixing' room where the waxes are treated with • acids and chemicals to achieve purity. Different types of waxes are blended to formulae for special needs. Wicks vary according to re- quirements and there are many special textures and sizes. Often they are of cotton yarn braided by machinery but they may be flat, round, square or multi- colored. The dipping department of candle factory is full of machines, many -hued dye baths, moulds and holders for the finished can- dles. The dipping machines used in some factories for mass production operate on a merry- go-round principle. The wicks are laced upon frames which are then fitted on the steel arms of the dipping machine just as if they were being pinned on thu ribs of an umbrella around its circular edge. The frames can he lowered, raised again, and swung around to pause at a given point. That's exactly what happens. An operator pulls a lever, the frame slides dow n allowing the wick: to be immersed in a steam - heated tank of wax. A counter- weir;ht pulls the frame up again; the frame moves on to the next point around the merry-go-round; and another frame gets clipped. 13y the time the first frame has completed its circle, the war hag cooled and the: wick:: are reedy for another dipging. In this way the n'a:: heeds up layer Upon layee until the mulles ere ready to be Snipped from the frame, perhaps hared- eolnred or tritium: , and than alricke at for rteliviee•. Ii talo, 75 i'c1 .'•.sly t•' , le,, '.i sla:x :pi, -al t'la;:'..,ulr"C, M.sir:,' 81 see-, tJte re, el. . , ' ., i•? le telesc i.0 r ee, Mount l'olO' temp flee liesetalels' else., err flys conctellration .Ur.o Major, ie. rvee e'.hen,;i:•:a , le-: ea:.;ac ;C)D,th""0 light-years From the car•lh, o. 42,fO'U ,(tO1,r,f:O,0C0,0f!OeSeS1 tolli •s. The, new ccrrr;'rutcttirm revere ti•ein four tiffs t, that e, ,: m.. -.,t7.4 I 5 reps cowl. Nice Rice •- 'i3els smiling yaungsier in Athens, Greece, sitting astride a bag of rice, mirrors the delight of his countrymen in Greece's 1953 rice harvest, The successful harvest has given every indication that there will be enough rice`to feed the country for a year, with some left over for export. clippings to make the conven- tional diluter -table candle. - In Canada there are some 14 Or 15 firms engaged in candle - making. Most of them are cane tered around Montreal, with the church in the province of Que- bec as the biggest' customer. Family business that started as small home -crafts a few genera- tions ago now sell from coast to coast and export to markets all over the world,- From the mo- dest little plant of J. E. &iallloux Limited on the banks of the Richelieu river near St. Johns P.Q., hundreds of tons of litur- gical candles have been shipped to such faraway places as New Zealand, China, Algeria, Marla- gascar and Martinique ... where - ever Canadian priests work as missionaries, Candlemaking requires no noisy machinery, and the Mai11- oux factory is a pleasant, quiet place permeated with sweet scent of honey from the bees- wax, and gay with rows of ruby, blue and amber glass jars wett- ing to be filled with wax for sanctuary and votive lights. Yet this 49 -year-old business uses the most up-to-date equipment. Big white slabs of crude -scale pace- ffin west, which has a melting point of 134 to 135° Fahrenheit, are slowly dissolved by stt:ann heat circulatink through the double wails of stainless steel tanks. Inexpensive white domes- • tic candles which prudent housewives still stock against emergencies such as when an electric fuse blows and plunges the house into darkness .- are mass-produced in two giant me- tal moulds, each of which can produce about four tons of can- dles in 24 hours. The snail, squat. votive .lights which burn for 10 to 15 hours, leave their moulds with a hole pierced through the ,entre for the wick. Three girls with deft fingers thread the wax -stiffened • wicks, ' cut to length with a' branched tin•base at one end to hold them in place, through 125 gross of candles each day just about the number burned before • shrines in one month in Montreal's Notre Dame Church. The most unusual products to leave the St. Johns factory are certainly the stubby, raspberry - pink candles that can be eaten 10 -an emergency. They are made to a special formula in- vented by one of the eight Maill- mux brothers. One of these can- dles, when chewed but not eat- en, has 50 percent food value. It can keep a man alive for three days with nothing else to eat, when lost in some remote spot in the Canadian wilderness, The tallest candles that Mail1- ori produce are custom-made for a local Syrain who vowed, if his prayers for his son's re- covery from a serious illness Cootie Kids Risk Lives To Earn A Few Pennies - The sight of 'teen and swimming madly toward on incoming ship puzzles newcom ship is from Red China, loaded with fish for Hong Kong. Upon s They are competing for the privilege of "coolieing" the fish to board get tha jobs. Latecomers are out of luck. So the boys race speed and the boys take desperate chances. Some are hit, knoc fere a, d cut to pieces. 4heia photos show how the coolie boys get '1" . is •,; tocai. ley, c, feet .rp 'L'l ',l were answered, to offer a special eandle in church on the child's birthday each year, Before each birthday for the last five years' the little bay has been measured, and a wax candle made equal to his height; recently, for his 14th birthday, the candle stood nearly five feet high. The medieval pr;tctice of pre- senting before a shrine a candle as tall as its donor was called "measuring to" such and such a saint. It still survives among Canadians of southern European stock. Pilling their special or- ders forms a small but steady trade for F. Baillargeon Limited of fit. Constant, P.Q., the lar - gent firm of candlemakers in Canada. Since the candle re- tails at about a dollar a pound, a six-footer who buys a three-inch diameter birthday candle will be out of pocket nearly $17. In our homes, since electric light arrived, the candle's func- tion has changed. It is now used primarily for ornamental ef- fect, a trend encouraged by in- terior decorators, and is more in demand than ever. Many people prefer to dine by candlelight because the soft, haloed gleans flatters the high polish of wood, sparkle of crystal and glint of silver. - One new novelty candle makes a virtue of the grease which flows as it burns; beneath a white -iced surface, it changes color every inch, and the wax falls in a multi -hued cascade, like a glacier caught at Om toed of a rainbow. New ideas for baby sliawe.'s are dandles in the shape of pink or blue bootees, or a baby's bot•. :tie. For cocktail parties, n fat pineapple eandle forms a t+11.71 pincushion for matelisticks to skewer here d'oeuvre tidbits. There are waterlily candles to float in a flat glass dish, and slender tapers to arrange arnoug flowers. Kits of pearls and se - quills aro sold to decorate plain candles for gala occasions. Little hockey players can be custom - finished in the club colors of any specific Canadian team. Festivi- ties the year round have their symbols in wax—the: Laster bun- ny, the Hallowe'en pumpkin and at Christmas, of course, Santa Claus. There are few limits to the ingenuity of the candlemakers, from the tiny tapers that top. a birthday cake to the wirld's biggest candle—a one -ton giant, 17 feet tall with a 60 -inch waist- line, lit each year on the anal ersary of the death of Caruso in the church at Pompeii where he is buried. No wonder that poets, from Icing Solomon and Shapespeare to Edna St. Vincent Millay have sung the praises of the graceful, friendly candle. It has been used as the symbol of light, of comfort, of time, and of life it- self. self. From The Imperioi 011 Review, Nc sive Know -How - Pte. Loy W. Conley gels a Yrr_:::.: ,:I from a South Korean farmer in loading a portable A -frame, a centuries-old Korean device for moving the family belongings. Conley puts the gadget to good use hauling his outfit's mail. age boys leaping into the filthy waters of Hong Kong harbor ers. The boys are risking their lives to earn a few pennie.h The ighting a fish ship, the boys dive in and swim as fast as they can. Hong Kong. Each carries a net for this purpose. Early arrivals on to the ship and clamber aboard, The vessel does not slacken ked out and drown. Others have been caught in the sh'n's prnei i.- aboard the fish ships, "• bays y the do>_en, each with fish net, dive into the filthy waters off Hong Pone 'wee - im out to meet fisc-Incien ship coming in from Red Chino. - I W :...< .,, acs, ship moves along es boys risli their Il sett 1 to shitniy aboard to win a chance at unloading the fish, h'e oe cp i,i:rtitidn, boys swarm a.' ee:A mcvivJ ship like old- time pirates. Many have been knocked out and drowned.